Tag Archives: Pythagoras and music

Math teachers have often noticed that students who are good in math have studied, or are studying, music. In the past, it was assumed that the kind of discipline necessary to excel in playing a musical instrument would extend to other academic areas, leading to excellence in those areas as well. But some researchers looked at the math-music relationship and wondered if something other than discipline may be involved.

Since the time of the ancient Greeks, people have been fascinated with the relationship between music and mathematics. Pythagoras (died 500 B.C.) is considered by some to be the founder of both math and music – famous for his theorum on triangles in mathematics, but also for developing the concept of intervals in music (link from Physics of Music course, George Gibson, University of Connecticut).

The relationship between math and music has been written about by philosophers, poets, scientists, musicians, mathematicians, and others. Currently, there are dozens of books in print on the subject, ranging from historical perspectives to explorations of acoustical, theoretical, physical, or analytical relationships.